Part 5

Come to us, Quintus Valerius! Here to our grottos descend still the sunrays, but silvery, and mild as those of Cynthia. Here the assiduous tumults that burden thy life but resemble the distant humming of bees.

We feel ourselves to be listening for the poet, and would fain with him enjoy the fresh air, the soothing calm,

While Hesperus over the waters broadens his rosy face. And the waves are lapping the shore.

In the glimpses afforded, in this poem, of Garda lifting her dusky shoulders over the liquid mirror,

Singing the while a saga of cities ancient and buried, And their barbaric kings;

of Catullus,

Mooring all day long to the wet rocks his pitched canoe And watching in the phosphorescent waves the eyes of his Lesbia;

of the

white swans swimming down through the silvery Mincio;

and,

from the green pastures where sleeps Bianore, the sound of Virgilius' voice;

and of the

face stern and grand looking out from the tower of the Scaligers,

centuries of literary history seem to pass before our eyes in living procession.

Most tender of all these tributes of the poet, interweaving the memory of his revered predecessors and masters with the nature loved by them, and by himself for them, is the sonnet addressed to Petrarch [XXIII]:

If far from turbid thoughts and gloomy mood.

It is as delicate as the odour of jessamine

in the green blackness of the tangled wood,

and breathes a rich melancholy, as if,

when day is done, A nightingale from bough to bough were singing.

The sonnets addressed to the more recent poets, his fellow-countrymen, seem mainly to have served as vents for Carducci's own indignation at the literary and political degeneracy of the present time. Many of them are from among the poet's earlier productions, and the changes which have occurred since their writing make them seem to belong already to a past period when perhaps more than at present his severe reflections on his country and countrymen were deserved. A foreigner can hardly enter into the bitterness of vituperation which finds utterance in such poems as those “In Santa Croce” [XXVIII], or “The Voice of the Priests” [XXIX], the sonnet addressed to Vittorio Alfieri [XXV],

O de l'italo agon supremo atleta,

and that to Goldoni, the “Terence of the Adria”; but all of these, which we may call the literary sonnets, have a certain universal value in that they reflect more than individual feeling. Each poet addressed is identified in some way with the nation's weal or woe; and the soul of the patriot, and no mere dilettante admiration, is what pours forth those fervid utterances which, in another tongue and to the ear of strangers, will naturally often seem overwrought.

No less truly does the soul of the father speak in the beautiful verses “On my Daughter's Marriage,” and the soul of manly friendship in that little song “At the Table of a Friend,” which seems as if it had dropped from the pages of Horace like a purple grape from the cluster all odorous with its bloom.

Over all others in stern and majestic portraiture rise those verses, both of the earlier and later period, in which Carducci treats of Dante and his influence. Nowhere are we more impressed than here with the strange fascination of that man who

made things good and evil to tell their tale through him the fatal prophet;

against whose Gothic sphere Carducci's Hellenic spirit continually fretted and rebelled. Yet his soul is ever thrilled (see the Sonnet on the Sixth Centenary of Dante [XXXIV]) with awe at the reappearing of that “mighty Form,”

when shook the Adrian shore and all the land Italia trembled,

which,

like a morning mist Did march along the Apenninian strand, Glancing adown the vales on either hand, Then vanished like the dawn;

while “in earthly hearts a fear arose, discovering the awful presence of a God,” and there,

where, beyond the gates, the sun is burning, The races dead, of war-like men and wise, With joy saluted the great soul's returning.

The antagonism between the pagan and the Christian religious instincts comes to light in all that Carducci writes of his revered master. Half in anger he chides the awful singer who

Comes down from heaven bringing the Hymn Supreme,

while upon his brow shines

a radiance divine Like his who spake with God in Sinai,—

because he cared not for

His poor country and the endless strife that rent its cities.

With the splendours of the holy kingdom, amid which Dante stood, Carducci contrasts the mortal fields of civil war and the wastes deserted and malignant,

whence comes the sound, dreary and dull, of dying warriors' sighs;

and yet no commentator seems to become so transformed as Carducci into Dante's own being and manner when contemplating and describing him. The poem on Dante, beginning with the words [XXXIII]:

Forte sembianze di novella vita,

recalls, in its statuesque strength and supple beauty, Michael Angelo's “Sleeping Slave.” It breathes all through with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. In the narrative of Dante's secret heart-life and soul-life it seems as if we were turning new leaves of _La Vita Nova_ rather than those of a nineteenth-century critic. No voice but Dante's seems to speak in lines like these, describing the first awaking of the passion of love in the youthful poet's heart:

Sighing and pensive, yet with locks aglow With rosy splendour from another air, Love made long stay: And such the gentle things He talked to thee with bashful lips: so sweetly He entered all the chambers of thy heart That no one ever knew to love like thee.

This surely is the “intelletto d'amore” of Dante himself.

Hardly less like Dante is the picture of Beatrice in that half-playful, half-worshipful poem on that mysterious personage [XXXV]:

Like our Lady from heaven She passes before me, An angel in seeming, and yet all so ardent My mind stopped thinking But to look at her, And the soul was at rest,—but for sighing!

How sweet and true an echo from Sonnet XXV in _La Vita Nova_:

Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare!

Here Carducci treats Beatrice under the favourite character of the Idea which is to elevate mankind from its rude savagery. As in Goethe,

Das ewig weibliche zieht uns hinan.

Not a woman, but the Idea, Am I, which heaven did offer For man to study when seeking things on high.

Nevertheless, we cannot forget the satirical tone in which, in another poem, he contrasts the ideal love of Dante with the passion of a lower kind that found its home in the Greek nature, and sings rather of Lalage and Lesbia than of this “Angel in seeming.”

It is in his poetic power of interpretation that here, as in the poems on nature, Carducci proves himself the true realist. Whatever form he chooses, is for the time filled with its own life, and speaks from that and no other. I have introduced the “Hymn to the Redeemer” [XI], that _Lauda Spirituale_, which the poet describes in the passage from his autobiography quoted in the previous essay as a youthful literary experiment, in which he attempted to clothe the spiritual idea of the Christ with the form of the pagan triumphal ode. The heroic picture of the Redeemer of the world returning from Battle as a Victor and receiving triumphal honour and applause, is novel, and not without a high order of beauty. It seems, indeed, to minds trained to modern religious thought, more pagan than Christian; but one may question whether this aspect of Christ as the Hero is not one which the Church has erroneously overlooked in her tendency to lay stress on the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, rather than on the actual deliverance wrought for man by Him in His warfare against the infernal hosts, setting the race thereby spiritually free from bondage. Do we not see here the same attempt to present the Christian Redemption in ancient heroic form, as the Pisan sculptors made when they copied from pagan sarcophagi the figures of their apostles and saints? It was not the conventional way; but we feel that they might have done worse.

A few poems from Carducci's youthful period, in which he indulges in the meaningless melancholy, the passion and despair, incident to that stage of the poet's growth, I have introduced, as showing that he too had his sentimental side. In these he describes his emotions. They are the sonnets from the _Juvenilia_, beginning respectively with the following lines:

O questi di prima io la vidi. Uscia. [XXXVI] · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Non son quell'io che già d'amiche cene. [XXXVII] · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · Passa la nave mia, sola, tra il pianto. [XXI]

As such they are beautiful, but they lack that objectivity and realistic power which is felt in those poems where, as in life, the emotion tells itself, and does not need to be described.

In the _Odi Barbare_, for which title I am unable to find a better rendering than “Barbaric Odes,” foreign as it may seem to the character of these exquisitely finished verses, I have followed the poet's choice in omitting to capitalize the initial words of the lines. Many of these poems are without rhyme, and, for the sake of greater faithfulness in translating them, I have sometimes discarded both the rhyme and the strict rhythmical form.

F. S.

WASHINGTON, D. C., June, 1892.

POEMS

I

ROMA

Give to the wind thy locks; all glittering Thy sea-blue eyes, and thy white bosom bared, Mount to thy chariots, while in speechless roaring Terror and Force before thee clear the way!

The shadow of thy helmet like the flashing Of brazen star strikes through the trembling air. The dust of broken empires, cloud-like rising, Follows the awful rumbling of thy wheels.

So once, O Rome, beheld the conquered nations Thy image, object of their ancient dread.[7] To-day a mitre they would place upon

Thy head, and fold a rosary between Thy hands. O name! again to terrors old Awake the tired ages and the world!

DECENNALI.

II

TO SATAN

To thee my verses, Unbridled and daring, Shall mount, O Satan, King of the banquet.

Away with thy sprinkling, O Priest, and thy droning, For never shall Satan, O Priest, stand behind thee.

See how the rust is Gnawing the mystical Sword of St. Michael; And how the faithful

Wind-plucked archangel Falls into emptiness! Frozen the thunder in Hand of Jehovah.

Like to pale meteors, or Planets exhausted, Out of the firmament Rain down the angels.

Here in the matter Which never sleeps, King of phenomena, King of all forms,

Thou, Satan, livest! Thine is the empire Felt in the dark eyes' Tremulous flashing,

Whether their languishing Glances resist, or, Glittering and tearful, they Call and invite.

How shine the clusters With happy blood, So that the furious Joy may not perish!

So that the languishing Love be restored, And sorrow be banished And love be increased!

Thy breath, O Satan, My verses inspires When from my bosom The gods I defy

Of Kings pontifical, Of Kings inhuman: Thine is the lightning that Sets minds to shaking.

For thee Arimane, Adonis, Astarte; For thee lived the marbles, The pictures, the parchments,

When the fair Venus Anadiomene Blessed the Ionian Heavens serene.

For thee were roaring the Forests of Lebanon, Of the fair Cyprian Lover reborn;

For thee rose the chorus, For thee raved the dances, For thee the pure shining Loves of the virgins,

Under the sweet-odoured Palms of Idume, Where break in white foam The Cyprian waves.

What if the barbarous Nazarene fury, Fed by the base rites Of secret feastings,

Lights sacred torches To burn down the temples, Scattering abroad The scrolls hieroglyphic?

In thee find refuge The humble-roofed plebs, Who have not forgotten The gods of their household.

Thence comes the power, Fervid and loving, that, Filling the quick-throbbing Bosom of woman,

Turns to the succour Of nature enfeebled, A sorceress pallid, With endless care laden.

Thou to the trance-holden Eye of the alchemist, Thou to the view of the Bigoted mago,

Showest the lightning-flash Of the new time Shining behind the dark Bars of the cloister.

Seeking to fly from thee Here in the world-life, Hides him the gloomy monk In Theban deserts.

O soul that wanderest Far from the straight way, Satan is merciful. See Héloïsa!

In vain you wear yourself Thin in rough gown; I Still murmur the verses Of Maro and Flaccus

Amid the Davidic Psalming and wailing; And—Delphic figures Close to thy side—

Rosy, amid the dark Cowls of the friars, Enters Licorida, Enters Glicera.

Then other images Of days more fair Come to dwell with thee In thy secret cell.

Lo! from the pages of Livy, the Tribunes All ardent, the Consuls, The crowds tumultuous,

Awake; and the fantastic Pride of Italian Drives thee, O Monk, Up to the Capitol;

And you, whom the flaming Pyre never melted, Conjuring voices, Wiclif and Huss,

Send to the broad breeze The cry of the watchman: “The age renews itself; Full is the time!”

Already tremble The mitres and crowns. Forth from the cloister Moves the rebellion.

Under his stole, see, Fighting and preaching, Brother Girolamo Savonarola.

Off goes the tunic Of Martin Luther; Off go the fetters That bound human thought.

It flashes and lightens, Girdled with flame. Matter, exalt thyself! Satan has won!

A fair and terrible Monster unchained Courses the oceans, Courses the earth;

Flashing and smoking, Like the volcanoes, he Climbs over mountains, Ravages plains,

Skims the abysses; Then he is lost In unknown caverns And ways profound,

Till lo! unconquered, From shore to shore, Like to the whirlwind, He sends forth his cry.

Like to the whirlwind Spreading its wings... He passes, O people, Satan the great!

Hail to thee, Satan! Hail, the Rebellion! Hail, of the reason the Great Vindicator!

Sacred to thee shall rise Incense and vows! Thou hast the god Of the priests disenthroned!

III

HOMER

And from the savage Urals to the plain A new barbarian folk shall send alarms, The coast of Agenorean Thebes again Be waked with sound of chariots and of arms;

And Rome shall fall; and Tiber's current drain The nameless lands of long-deserted farms: But thou, like Hercules, shalt still remain, Untouched by fiery Etna's deadly charms;

And with thy youthful temples laurel-crowned Shalt rise to the eternal Form's embrace Whose unveiled smile all earliest was thine;

And till the Alps to gulfing sea give place, By Latin shore or on Achæan ground, Like heaven's sun, shalt thou, O Homer, shine!

LEVIA GRAVIA.

IV

VIRGIL

As when above the heated fields the moon Hovers to spread its veil of summer frost, The brook between its narrow banks half lost Glitters in pale light, murmuring its low tune;

The nightingale pours forth her secret boon, Whose strains the lonely traveller accost; He sees his dear one's golden tresses tossed, And time forgets in love's entrancing swoon;

And the orphaned mother who has grieved in vain Upon the tomb looks to the silent skies And feels their white light on her sorrow shine;

Meanwhile the mountains laugh, and the far-off main, And through the lofty trees a fresh wind sighs: Such is thy verse to me, Poet divine!

LEVIA GRAVIA.

V

INVOCATION TO THE LYRE

If once I cut thee with a trembling hand From Latin bough to Phœbus that belongs, So now, O Lyre, shalt thou rehearse the songs Of the Tuscan land.

What consolations fierce to bosoms hard Of bristling warriors thou wast wont to bring, Or else in peace the soothing verse to sing Of the Lesbian bard!

Thou taughtest them of Venus and of Love, And of the immortal son of Semele, The Lycian's hair, the glowing majesty Of deep-browed Jove.

Now, when I strike, comes smiling to my side The spirit of Flaccus, and through choirs divine Of laurelled nymphs that radiant round me shine, Calmly I glide.

O dear to Jove and Phœbus! Sway benignant Which art chief guardian of our cities' peace, Answer our prayers! and bid the discord cease Of souls malignant!

JUVENILIA.

VI

SUN AND LOVE

Fleecy and white into the western space Hurry the clouds; the wet sky laughs Over the market and streets; and the labour of man Is hailed by the sun, benign, triumphal.

High in the rosy light lifts the cathedral Its thousand pinnacles white and its saints of gold Flashing forth its hosannas; while all around Flutter the wings and the notes of the brown-plumed choir.

So 'tis when love and its sweet smile dispel The clouds which had so sorely me oppressed; The sun again arises in my soul With all life's holiest ideals renewed

And multiplied, the while each thought becomes A harmony and every sense a song.

NUOVE POESIE.

VII

TO AURORA

Thou risest and kissest, O Goddess, with rosy breath, the clouds, Kissest the dusky pinnacles of marble temples.

The forests feel thee and with a cool shiver awake; Up soars the falcon flashing in eager joy.

Meanwhile amid the wet leaves mutter the garrulous nests, And far off the grey gull screams over the purple sea.

First to delight in thee, down in the laborious plain, Are the streams which glisten amid the rustling poplars.

Daringly the sorrel colt breaks away from his feeding, Runs to the brooks with high-lifted mane, neighing in the wind.

Wakeful answers from the huts the great pack of the hounds, And the whole valley is filled with the sound of their noisy barking.

But the man whom thou awakest to life-consuming labour, He, O ancient Youth, O Youth eternal,

Still thoughtful admires thee, even as on the mountain The Aryan Fathers adored thee, standing amid their white oxen.

Again upon the wing of the fresh morning flies forth The hymn which to thee they sang over their heaped-up spears.

“Shepherdess thou of heaven! from the stalls of thy jealous sister Thou loosest the rosy kine and leadest them back to the skies:

Thou leadest the rosy kine, and the white herds, and the horses With the blond flowing manes dear to the brothers Asvini.”

Like a youthful bride who goes from her bath to her spouse, Reflecting in her eyes the love of him her lover,

So dost thou smiling let fall the light garments that veil thee, And serene to the heavens thy virgin figure reveal.

Flushed thy cheeks, with white breast panting, thou runnest To the sovereign of worlds, to the fair flaming Suria.

And he joins and, in a bow, stretches around his mighty neck Thy rosy arms: but at his terrible glances thou fleest.

'Tis then the Asvinian Twins, the cavaliers of heaven, Welcome thee rosily trembling in thy chariot of gold,

And thither thou turnest where, measured the road of glory, Wearied, the god awaits thee in the dull gloaming of eve.

“Gracious thy flight be above us!” so invoked thee the fathers, “Gracious the going of thy radiant car over our houses.

“Come from the coasts of the East with thy good fortune, Come, with thy flowering oats and thy foaming milk.

“And in the midst of the calves, dancing, with yellow locks, An offspring vast shall adore thee, O Shepherdess of heaven!”

So sang the Aryans. But better pleased thee Hymettus, Fresh with the twenty brooks whose banks smelt to heaven of thyme;

Better pleased thee on Hymettus the nimble-limbed, mortal huntsman, Who with the buskined foot pressed the first dews of the morn.

The heavens bent down. A sweet blush tinged the forest and the hills, When thou, O Goddess, didst descend.

But thou descendedst not; rather did Cephalus, drawn by thy kiss, Mount, all alert, through the air, fair as a beautiful god,—

Mount on the amorous winds and amid the sweet odours, While all around were the nuptials of flowers and the marriage of streams.

Wet lies upon his neck the heavy tress of gold and the golden quiver Reaches above his white shoulder, held by the belt of vermilion.

O fragrant kisses of a goddess among the dews! O ambrosia of love in the world's youth-time!

Dost thou also love, O goddess? But ours is a wearied race; Sad is thy face, O Aurora, when thou risest over our towers.

The dim street-lamps go out; and without even glancing at thee, A pale-faced troop go home imagining they have been happy.

Angrily at his door is pounding the ill-tempered labourer, Cursing the dawn that only calls him back to his bondage.

Only the lover, perhaps, fresh from the dreams of the loved one, His blood still warm from her kisses, salutes thee with joy,

Beholds with delight thy face, and feels thy cool breathing upon him: Then cries, “O bear me, Aurora, upon thy swift courser of flame,—

“Bear me up into the fields of the stars, that there, looking down, I may behold the earth beneath thy rosy light smiling,—

“Behold my fair one in the face of the rising day, Let fall her black tresses down over her blushing bosom.”

ODI BARBARE.

VIII

RUIT HORA

O green and silent solitudes far from the rumours of men! Hither come to meet us true friends divine, O Lidia, Wine and love.

O tell me why the sea far under the flaming Hesperus Sends such mysterious moanings; and what songs are these, O Lidia, The pines are chanting?

See with what longing the hills stretch their arms to the setting sun! The shadow lengthens and holds them; they seem to be asking A last kiss, O Lidia!

ODI BARBARE.

IX

THE OX

T'amo, pio bove

I love thee, pious ox; a gentle feeling Of vigour and of peace thou giv'st my heart. How solemn, like a monument, thou art! Over wide fertile fields thy calm gaze stealing, Unto the yoke with grave contentment kneeling, To man's quick work thou dost thy strength impart. He shouts and goads, and answering thy smart, Thou turn'st on him thy patient eyes appealing.

From thy broad nostrils, black and wet, arise Thy breath's soft fumes; and on the still air swells, Like happy hymn, thy lowing's mellow strain. In the grave sweetness of thy tranquil eyes Of emerald, broad and still reflected dwells All the divine green silence of the plain.

X

TO PHŒBUS APOLLO

The sovereign driver Of the ethereal chariot Whips the fiery wing-footed steeds— A Titan most beautiful. · · · · · · · · · · · From the Thessalian valley, From the Ægean shores, The vision divine of the prophets Hellenic saw thee arise,

The youthful god most fair; Rising through the deserted skies, Thy feet had wings of fire, Thy chariot was a flame,

And around thee danced In the sphere serene The twenty-four virgins, In colours tawny and bright.

Didst thou not live? Did the Mæonian verse never reach thee? And did Proclus in vain call thee The Love of the universe?

The inexorable truth With its cold shadow covered Thee, the phantom of ages past, Hellas' god and mine.

Now, where is the chariot and the golden, Radiant brow of youth? An unsightly mouldering heap Gloomily flashing remains.